


i fake my breaking smile

by Rikkapikasnikka



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parent Emilie Agreste, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Childhood Trauma, Domestic Fluff, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, baby teeth, minor descriptions of blood, teeth pulling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26033365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikkapikasnikka/pseuds/Rikkapikasnikka
Summary: Hugo is six when he wakes up with his first loose tooth. And Adrien has no idea what he's supposed to do.Adrien has long since vowed that he would not be the parent his parents were, but some challenges are harder to surmount than others. With the help of his beautiful, strong, incredible wife, he can get through this.Sometimes, overcoming trauma can be like pulling teeth.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Hugo Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 42
Kudos: 153





	i fake my breaking smile

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read this work, or judge it too critically, understand that this story is essentially a self-insert. Please keep this in mind when judging Emilie and Gabriel's characterisations.
> 
> Adrien's experiences here are based heavily upon my own. Some parts are true, others are for the story (especially the married life portions), but all in all, this was a way for me to process. Or try to process. I don't think I was successful; this story had a grip on me that I could not shake, and I worked relentlessly on it. It was difficult and arduous, but it is done.
> 
> And lastly, thank you very much to Cass, who inspired me to write something for the pitifully small 'Bad Parent Emilie Agreste' tag and was my beta, and to the love of my internet life, Sibby, who kept me grounded and made me go to bed. <3

Hugo was six when he woke up with his first loose tooth. And Adrien had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Marinette and Hugo were chatting, his mother leaning over with her hands on her knees so she could be on his eye level. They were both excited and avid, their words flowing like the bells of Hugo’s colourful xylophone. Which Adrien was holding slack in his hands, until it fell and dropped on his toes.

_“Shit!”_

“Adrien!” Marinette scolded, standing up straight as Hugo turned his wide, blue eyes in his father’s direction. Adrien gave a watery, pained smile through the sting. He leaned over and picked up the wooden toy, the chiming of its bells as unenthusiastic as the ache in his chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I, uh-- it hurt.”

“I bet,” she mumbled, frowning. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Perfectly fine.” 

The words came too fast, too clipped, to be entirely genuine, and Adrien distracted himself by putting the xylophone away in its shelf. Mechanically, he knelt down on the play area rug and put away the rest of Hugo’s toys, throwing cars into the red bucket, blocks into the blue one, and dolls into the yellow. Marinette watched him for a long, silent moment before she reached out and pulled Hugo’s hand into her own.

“C’mon, mon petit chou, let’s make some breakfast.”

“Maman!”

Hugo tottered out of his bedroom and after her, his duckling pyjamas softening his footsteps.

Adrien breathed a sigh of relief, a metal monster truck in one hand and a handsewn doll in the other. He hung his head, looked at the toys, and turned them over and over until Plagg phased through the shelf and eyed him critically.

“Morning, Plagg,” Adrien said in a dull greeting. “Did you eat yet?”

Plagg was quiet. Adrien glanced at him with a questioning look as he finally put the truck and doll away. 

“Yeah,” the kwami spoke up. “We ate. Pigtails is making waffles, wanted to know what kind you wanted.”

Adrien felt his mouth flood with saliva at the prospect of fluffy, crispy, golden dough. “Strawberry’s fine. Thanks.”

Yet Plagg didn’t immediately zoom away to tell Marinette Adrien’s decision. Instead, he sat down on the shelf he had just come out of, watching Adrien with narrowed, glowing eyes. His whiskers twitched, but otherwise, Plagg showed no emotion. 

“You sure you’re okay, Adrien?”

It was Plagg’s subdued voice. The one he used when he thought Adrien was bottling his emotions, when Plagg thought Adrien was trying to hide something, when something was obviously wrong but Adrien wouldn’t talk. And Adrien felt himself grimace at how well his family knew him, but his chest felt as warm as the morning sunlight beaming through the windows.

“No,” Adrien said softly, looking up and meeting Plagg’s steady gaze. “But I will be.”

That was good enough for the kwami, and Plagg finally zoomed away to inform Marinette of her husband’s waffle decision.

It wasn’t until Adrien was seated at the dining table, the small one that they had set up next to the kitchen in the breakfast nook, that he realised how ‘not okay’ he truly was. Hugo was happily eating small squares of an orange melon, his tiny hands grasping a tiny fork as he chewed with tiny teeth. And Adrien was across from his son, his body as tense as a coiled spring, fists atop his knees with his fingers desperately digging into flannel cloth. Adrien didn’t even realise he was clenching his jaw until Marinette placed a plate in front of him, startling him out of his ruminating spiral. He stared, shocked, at the waffle so lovingly crafted - tinged pink from strawberries and topped with powdered sugar.

She placed down her own plate, pulled out her chair, and sat down. Marinette’s dark hair was pulled back, and her face was drawn tight with concern. Adrien wilted and, instead of facing the conversation that he knew she wanted to have, he started spooning fruit onto his plate and cutting his waffle. Marinette looked like she wanted to say something, but she sighed and turned to Hugo instead.

“How’s the cantaloupe, little one?” she cooed, and Adrien relaxed as Hugo smiled brightly and regaled his parents with stories of cantaloupes, trucks, palaces, and superheroes.

Marinette didn’t try encroaching upon the subject again until Adrien was in the kitchen, his trembling hands busy washing dishes as his mind wandered. She poked him in the forehead, and Adrien wiggled his nose.

“You’re thinking too hard,” she said, soft and gentle. “C’mon. What’s wrong?”

Adrien bit his lip, tasting strawberries and honeydew, and chewed. Marinette cupped his jaw and mercifully pulled his lip free from his teeth. Adrien inhaled deeply, his chest rising and tightening and _constricting--_ before he exhaled and tried to let his emotions go.

“Hugo has a loose tooth,” he said, as simply as he could. Marinette said nothing, but she nodded, waiting for Adrien to speak at his own pace. He turned the faucet off so he could scrub at the plates with a soapy sponge. “His first loose tooth. He’s going to lose his teeth.”

Marinette chuckled, and Adrien glared at her. She sobered up, but her smile was still there.

“Yes,” she whispered. “But just his milk ones; his adult ones will replace them. He’s at the age.”

“I know,” Adrien snapped, frowning. He stilled and took another deep breath. It wasn’t Marinette’s fault that Hugo was losing his teeth, and it was even less her fault that Adrien was upset. He tried to centre himself, find the core of the problem, working through the questions he had long learned to ask himself, lessons and mechanisms given to him through years of therapy. He could do this. He could rely on other people; she was just trying to help.

“I’m… scared,” Adrien finally admitted, going back to his dishes and soap suds. “I try hard not to be the parent my parents were, but…”

Marinette’s blue eyes blinked, and her face fell into one of pity and sympathy. Adrien didn’t want it, but he leaned into her half-hug anyway, taking comfort in her presence.

“But?” she asked, coaxing him to speak his mind a little more. Adrien hummed and turned the faucet back on, letting the soap wash off the plates and down the drain, wishing he could drown his insecurities--no, his _memories--_ with them.

“My mother,” and his voice cracked, high pitched and broken, ugly and hysterical. Adrien tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was firmly lodged. Instead, he shook his head, placing one plate, two plates, three plates on the drying rack. “Émilie, she… she hated loose teeth.”

Adrien dropped the sponge in the sink and gripped the edge of the counter, thumbs curling under the sharp lip and his long fingers scrambling for purchase on wet, slick metal. He bowed his head, his shoulders shook, and Marinette wrapped an arm around her husband’s waist as the first, wrangled, choking sob broke free.

“Hey,” she whispered, as Adrien felt, rather than heard, another inhumane sound leave him. “Hey, it’s okay. We can ask my parents for guidance, just like we did with teething. Is this why you were so nervous then?”

Adrien shook his head, nodded, and then shrugged, unable to land on the correct answer.

“Have you talked to Dr Pemberley yet? What has she said?”

“I h-haven’t,” he bit out through gritted teeth, trying to contain himself. It was a peaceful Saturday morning, and he was ruining it with stupid tears and stupid panic and it was all just stupid, stupid, _stupid…_

“Adrien,” Marinette commanded, her voice cutting through the fog in his head like a serrated knife through fresh bread. It cleaved and then demanded his attention, and Adrien turned teary eyes on his wife, his knuckles white and his elbows shaking. She was drawn up to her full, stunning height - which only reached his shoulder, but it was impressive enough to make him feel small. “Chaton.”

He swallowed again, and this time, the lump settled in his chest instead of back in his throat.

“Milady.” The nickname slipped from his lips unhindered, a fragile response to her compelling summons.

“You are not stupid.” Her voice had dropped back into its dove-like lull, and one of her hands had come up to cup his cheek. Adrien leaned into the touch, using her warm palm to ground himself. He nuzzled into it, realising now that he had been speaking aloud without his own conscious permission. “It’s alright to be scared. We can talk about it, okay? But right now…”

Their eyes drifted from the sink, to the rest of the kitchen, to the living room, where Hugo was busily playing with planes and horses and a large, stuffed dog.

“Right now, we need to be parents. We can talk after dinner, we can call the office on Monday, and we’ll ask Mama and Papa for advice. Okay?” Marinette slid her hand down his jaw until her petite fingers held his chin, gave him a quick, chaste kiss that made him smile, and dropped back onto her heels to grin wildly at him. “Don’t shut me out. Please.”

“I won’t,” Adrien whispered, voice husky and raw. He took a deep breath, held it for as long as he could, and let it go in one, long, dizzying exhale. Marinette nodded once, stepped away, and after one last, searching look at her husband, she turned and walked away. 

Adrien stood there at the sink, wondering when she had turned off the faucet during his moment of panic, and shrugged it off in favour of cleaning the rest of the kitchen.

* * *

The rest of the day was normal.

Almost...uneventful. 

They went through their usual Saturday routine. After the kitchen was clean, the three of them got dressed, slipped on shoes, and took a walk to the park. They watched Hugo play with the other children, chatted with other parents, and when all the energy was nigh exhausted and Adrien was starting to feel like it was too warm to stay, they went back home. Hugo held Marinette’s hand when they crossed the street, but he would hold Adrien’s up the stairs while Marinette carried the post. And after their adventure, they would sit and eat lunch - a traditionally big meal, but they always opted for light in lieu of their heavy breakfast. Hugo would make a mess, Adrien would make jokes, and Marinette would laugh.

And once they were tired and worn and cosy on the couch, watching children’s cartoons flicker across the television screen, Hugo would sleep and Marinette would doze, and Adrien would wonder how he ever got so lucky.

* * *

He collapsed on the couch again, placing his head in his Lady’s lap as she flipped through a magazine, her marker tapping at her mouth. Adrien had just finished the dishes for a third time today, and the yearning ache of a busy Saturday was starting to catch up with him. Dinner had been dense and filling, and Adrien was more than happy to just lie here until he fell asleep.

Marinette, however, glanced down at him as he sighed, and she chuckled. Her marker was put to the side so she could have a free hand to run through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp until he hummed in content bliss.

“Feeling better?” she asked, but Adrien frowned and opened his eyes to watch her.

The emotions came flooding back so suddenly that he stopped breathing. All day, he had packed them away, like confectioner’s chocolates in individual wrappers underneath an artfully decorated lid, only to find that they had rotted on transport. The knot in his chest was wound so abruptly tight, that Adrien had to push himself up. She let him remove himself from her, and Marinette placed her magazine to the side as he took deep, ragged breaths to qualm the growing flames.

“N-No,” he choked, desperately trying to count and focus and _breathe._ Marinette shifted behind him, and Adrien stiffened when she placed a hand on his shoulder. Slowly, she rubbed soothing circles into his back as he tried to suffocate the inferno of emotions with every extinguishing technique he had at his disposal.

“We can talk now,” Marinette insisted. “I’m sorry you had to wait, but I promise I’ll listen.”

“That’s fine,” Adrien said, finally turning around to face her. Her hand slid off his shoulder, and Adrien picked it up to cradle it in his lap. Mindlessly, he played with her fingers, the pad of his thumb dancing over her callouses from sketching, from sewing, from working.

These were strong hands, he reminded himself. He could trust her with everything.

“My mother…” Adrien started weakly. He swallowed and tried again. “My mother wasn’t always perfect...”

* * *

Adrien was older than Hugo when he had his first loose tooth, or so he remembered.

Unlike his growing son, Adrien didn’t go to school. He stayed at home, in that big, white mansion with its wide, empty spaces and gleaming, woeful floors. Looking back, it all felt wrong. Looking back, it all felt warped and twisted and surreal.

“Mum!” Adrien ambled down the stairs, clinging to the railing with excitement trembling in his legs and buzzing in his fingertips. “Mum, guess what!”

Émilie was talking with someone at the door, but she turned her curious gaze upon Adrien just as he slipped on the bottommost step - and whacked his face on the floor.

_“Adrien!”_

The seven-year-old groaned as he pushed himself up, dizzily staring at his reflection in the polished marble. His nose and his lip felt sore, and as his mother grabbed him from underneath his arms, he wiggled and tried to squirm out her grip. She placed him forcibly on his feet.

“Mum, I’m fine,” Adrien tried to reassure her, but his words came out thick and garbled. His lip _really_ hurt. He reached up to touch it, to push away the pain, but his mother’s perfectly manicured hand caught his wrist before he could. “Mum, stop--”

“You’re _bleeding._ Oh my gracious, Adrien, why did you run down the stairs!” Her voice was increasing in octave after octave, and Adrien wasn’t sure if he should try to get away or fall still. So, he twisted himself. “You know better than that! We’ve told you, time and time again--”

“Muuuumm,” Adrien whined, finally pulling himself away and brushing the back of his hand over his mouth. He was shocked to find it wet, and he glanced down at his hand in curiosity. 

Oh.

Émilie huffed.

“I told you!” she scolded, before sighing and placing her hands on her hips. Adrien just blinked at his hand. “Go find Nathalie, have her patch you up. Please.” And his mother turned away from him to continue addressing the person at the door, her apologies met with reassurances and waved hands.

Adrien pouted, but he did as he was told. He had wanted to show his mother his loose front tooth, before Nathalie came and dressed him for the day. Yet instead, he was marching his pyjama’d-self into her office and showing her his split lip, and Nathalie’s sigh was near identical to his mother’s.

“You should be more careful, Adrien,” Nathalie said, dabbing at his mouth with a cotton ball. Adrien sat still on top of the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, pouting as Nathalie took care of him. “Something like this could scar.”

“I just--”

“No talking.”

Adrien’s teeth clicked close, and he flinched as his loose tooth was jostled. Nathalie pulled back, her head tilted curiously, and Adrien fidgeted in place as she scrutinised him.

“Adrien,” she stressed in that tone of voice that demanded his honesty. “Why did you run down the stairs?”

Saddened green eyes dropped to his knees as he pouted even further. “I wanted to show Mum my milk tooth.”

Nathalie sighed. “Open up.”

Doing as he was told, Adrien wiggled the loose, front-most tooth with his tongue. It gave a little give in either direction, small and unassuming amongst its companions. Adrien grinned widely, despite the way it strained against his split lip. “Thee?!” he yipped around his tongue, “Ith movths!”

Nathalie pushed up her glasses, deposited the blood-dappled cotton ball, and moved to the medicine cabinet. “Yes, I see,” she replied tonelessly. “Does it hurt?”

“No? Should it?” Adrien inquired, speaking normally. 

“Not really.”

He contemplated that as he kicked his legs, restless and still yearning to show his mother his new discovery. Adrien pouted as Nathalie came back with a tube, and he scrunched up his face as she applied antiseptic.

But he was patient as she took care of him, because Adrien knew his mum would be proud of him, and she’d be proud of his loose tooth too.

Afterwards, Nathalie led him back upstairs, got him dressed and brushed and presentable for the day, and then led him back down. Adrien was given his usual breakfast of oatmeal, fruit, and chilled milk, but Nathalie also gave him a glass of ice to suck on for when his lip felt sore. Adrien was quietly thankful for it, and he was sucking on the frozen chips when Émilie came strolling into the dining hall with her husband behind her.

“I just don’t understand _why_ he would--” Her attention split from Gabriel to her son, and Émilie burst into a happy smile. “Adrien! You silly boy!”

Adrien giggled as she hugged him, ruffled his brushed hair, and stole one of his berries. “Hey!” he laughed, reaching for it just as Émilie swallowed. She grinned mischievously at him, tickled his sides until he howled, and Adrien had to slide out of his chair to escape his mother’s relentless love. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes and sat down at his usual seat, barely watching as Adrien darted around the chair and tried to tickle his mother back. They laughed, they played, and it wasn’t until much later that Adrien realised he had forgotten to tell his mother about his tooth.

* * *

“I think… I think she knew. I think Nathalie told her, because she would always avoid the topic. I… I never got a chance to… to tell her, face to face. She’d always distract me.”

“Do you think it was on purpose? Or was she just avoiding it?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

* * *

Adrien’s first few baby teeth wiggled, loosened, and fell out without much circumstance. He had regular dentist appointments every six months, and the man reported to Nathalie that Adrien’s teeth were in good health. He didn’t receive coins under his pillow, from either a fairy or a mouse or a little old man, and he had no concept of the tradition until he went to school and heard stories from his friends - when all of his baby teeth were, of course, gone with his mother.

The process was pain-free and simple until he was nine.

Adrien had chosen an apple for breakfast, and he was happily making his way through it when a sharp, jolting pain rocketed through his gums. Adrien cried out, covered his mouth as he dropped his apple, and whimpered as the pain throbbed and dulled. The apple rolled across the floor.

Gabriel exhaled sharply. “Quiet, Adrien.”

_“Oui, père.”_

Adrien slowly lowered his hands, pushed his tongue cautiously against the tooth that had been the origin of the pain, and he swallowed another whine. Instead, the boy got out of his chair, picked up the dropped apple, and placed it back on the pristine plate. He no longer felt like eating.

“May I be excused?” Adrien asked, glancing at his father. Gabriel hummed, and Adrien took that as an affirmative. He pushed in his chair, leaving his dishes behind for someone else to pick up.

The first person he went to was his mother. But as Adrien approached her room, he hesitated. Vague memories came back to him of other lost teeth, but in the end, they didn’t deter him. He pushed the door open slowly, peeking in on her.

“Mum?” Adrien said quietly, not wanting to startle her. “My… My mouth hurts…”

Émilie came quickly, pushing the door all the way open and stooping to her son’s level. Her eyes were wide, and her face was wrinkled with concern, but when she held Adrien’s chin and cheek to inspect, she found no blood, no bruise, nothing abnormal. “Where?” she inquired, confused.

“I was eating an apple,” Adrien murmured. “This one hurt.” He had to twist his mouth weirdly to show off the tooth, pointing to it with his tongue. Émilie blinked, furrowed her brow, and nudged the tooth.

Adrien whined.

“Ooh, honey…” she mumbled, ruffling his hair. “It’s just loose. It’ll fall out someday.”

“They’ve never hurt before,” Adrien complained, cupping his cheek as his mother took a step back.

“Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. You’ll just have to be patient.”

She walked back over to her vanity, and Adrien followed her, toddling after her like a duck tots after its mother, blond hair as fluffed as down. For the rest of the day, he stuck close to her, even when she tried to leave him, but Émilie’s patience never ran dry and she was as gentle as a mountain stream.

Over the next few days, Adrien’s confidence in eating waned. First, it was only hard foods, like the apple, that triggered the pain, but over time, it became anything and everything. He learned to bite and chew with the other side of his mouth, avoiding the tooth altogether, and his usual cold glass of milk in the morning was his worst nemesis. The chilled, fatty liquid felt like fire against the nerve, and Adrien couldn’t as easily avoid it.

Nathalie was quick to pick up that something was wrong. She brought him a straw one morning, and Adrien looked at her with stars and hope in his eyes.

But he didn’t have Nathalie’s observance and kindness during dinners.

Most of the time, Adrien ate with just his mother, and she was reluctant to convince her son to eat more than he wanted. She would encourage, sometimes bribe, but if Adrien fought or refused, she’d let him go. Carrots, broccoli, steak, baguette slices, and even wedges of cheese, all went uneaten on Adrien’s plates over the following days and weeks - until Gabriel joined them.

Adrien sat in his seat, trembling. He needed his father’s permission to leave the table, and while Gabriel would usually ignore the request during breakfasts, dinner was another matter altogether. Adrien wouldn’t be allowed to leave until his plate was clean.

The boy glared at his brussel sprouts. He had managed the chicken breast well enough by cutting it into small enough chunks, and the dinner rolls were soft enough to tear and moisten in his mouth, but Adrien didn’t even _like_ brussel sprouts. Émilie watched him wearily, probably wondering why he wasn’t eating, and Adrien swallowed his pride to spear one halved, yellow-green, tiny cabbage and put it in his mouth.

And he regretted.

He couldn’t even bring himself to chew. The agony that tore through his gums, his jaw, his whole _face,_ was not worth withstanding. Without thinking, Adrien let the (rather gross) vegetable fall out of his mouth and back onto his plate.

To shocked expressions from his parents.

_“Adrien.”_

His mother’s voice was a low hiss of steam, but his father’s was a boom of thunder that shook the bones. Adrien sank into his chair, his shoulders hunching.

“I…”

“Why did you _spit_ out your food?” Gabriel demanded.

“I… I didn’t spit…”

“Don’t argue. Answer.”

Adrien swallowed thickly. His jaw throbbed. “It hurts to chew.”

Gabriel looked to his wife, and Émilie shrugged. Adrien shrank even further into his seat. 

“Sit up straight,” his father snapped, and Adrien quickly followed the order. “Until your plate is clear, you won’t be excused.”

“I… I can’t, Father, it hur--”

“There is no ‘can’t’,” Gabriel looked back to his own plate, using his knife to slice his chicken into pieces. Adrien felt just like the bird, shredding under the serrated edge of his father’s words. “You will do it, or you will stay in that chair all night and that will be your breakfast.”

Adrien baulked. 

Some part of his brain told him that was impossible, while another part wrestled with Adrien’s own irrationality. Why wasn’t it possible to just eat the brussel sprouts? He’d eaten them before, he could eat them again; it was only just pain and misery. What was that in comparison to his father’s approval?

As if Adrien could earn it just by eating his veggies. Even at nine, he knew that was stupid.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien re-speared the sprout he had tried to eat earlier, lifted to his mouth, and carefully placed it inside.

He employed all of the techniques he had scrounged up over the past few weeks. He chewed on the other side of his mouth, but the action alone encouraged the nerve to spark and flare. He ate slow and deliberate, but any accidental brush of tongue or tooth against the tooth caused Adrien to tremble. Eventually, he swallowed, tears in his eyes and a deep pressure building up in his nose, but Adrien felt proud. One down, several more to go.

He could do this!

He could _not_ do this.

On the fifth one, Adrien broke down sobbing from the pain. His father was scowling, but Adrien couldn’t hear what he said over his mother’s frantic words. At some point, his chair had been pushed back, and Adrien wriggled as Émilie grabbed his wrist to try and pull his hand away from his mouth.

“Adrien!” she shrieked, and he cowed under her sharp voice. “Calm down! What is _wrong_ with you?!”

He shook his head, whimpering. She finally succeeded in yanking his hand to the side, and Adrien flinched as she grabbed his jaw, forcing it open. Gabriel only watched, eyes hard.

He was shaking. His mother had roughly handled him before, but never quite like this; never with her brow so drawn into deep furrows, never with her eyes scrutinising him so fiercely, and never with her nails poking so deep into his soft skin.

“Id hurds…” Adrien tried to say, his face squished and stretched as Émilie examined his teeth. She sighed.

“Of course it does, honey,” she cooed. And then she reached into his mouth, grabbed his tooth, and yanked.

* * *

_“What?!”_ Marinette screeched, and Adrien flinched away from her. His wife had curled around him protectively as he told his story, but now, she was seething. Marinette pushed herself off the couch, and Adrien slid and fell backwards with a quiet, ‘oof.’

As he lay prone and emotionally drained on the cushions, Marinette paced furiously in the living room, waving her arms, growling, cursing, and nearly yelling. Adrien watched her progress, and he started to laugh.

“She’s an awful, horrendous, shit-excuse for a mother and--!”

“Marinette,” Adrien called quietly, and she stopped, breathing heavily. She turned her blue eyes on him, and he tried to remember that her boiling anger was not directed at him, but at what was done _to_ him. He took a deep breath, as much for her as himself, and Marinette copied him. She came back to the couch, and for a while, they breathed together, letting their emotions drop to a bare simmer and gradually back to a place of serenity.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers as he sat up and she sat back down. “I… I shouldn’t have reacted that way. What happened after that?”

Adrien shrugged. “The tooth came out. I bled a lot. My mum panicked and Father shouted. It’s all a little fuzzy, honestly, but…” His eyes dropped to their joined hands. “It… That wasn’t the only time.” 

Marinette inhaled deeply, held the air in her chest, and Adrien watched as the stress left her shoulders on the exhale. “How many other teeth did she pull out?”

Adrien shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the topic again. “About… About six or eight.”

Marinette’s eyes went wide, she barred her teeth, but then all of the fight left her. She sighed, dropped her head into her hands, and Adrien held his in his lap as she came to terms with what his mother had done. Slowly, she shook her head, and Adrien watched a tear drop onto the pants.

“H-Hey!” He took her shoulders, coaxing her hands away from her face. “Milady, don’t cry. Look at me.” Adrien brushed away her tears with his thumbs, and she obliged him by looking at him. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”

She sniffled, and Adrien smiled through his own watery eyes. “But you’re _not,”_ she stressed. “You’ve been acting weird all day because your _own son_ finally has a loose milk tooth. A normal, _healthy_ process for every child! You shouldn’t have to… You shouldn’t be…” Whatever words Marinette was trying to give, she couldn’t find, and she slammed her fist down on the couch. The cushion just bounced under her force. Adrien pushed away more of her tears.

“What Émilie did to you wasn’t fair,” she finally said, her voice quiet but as heavy as a mallet in the silence of their living room.

“I… I know.”

They fell back together, curled around each other, both of them processing separate emotions. Marinette shook her head and kissed Adrien’s temple, running her hand through his hair as he sighed and leaned further into her.

“Tell me more.”

Adrien scuffed. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. But only if you’re still willing,” Marinette hastily added.

“It’s hard,” he mumbled. “But I’d rather cry in front of you than Dr Pemberley.”

* * *

Over the next few years, Adrien hid his loose teeth.

But after he lost his incisors, it became a lot harder to hide the pain. The canines were sensitive and difficult to avoid, and when Adrien was ten, his mother successfully pulled loose two with little resistance on Adrien’s part.

“See?” She held out her hand, the tiny bit of bone as pristine as a chip of ivory in her wide palm. “It was practically dangling out of your mouth!”

Adrien didn’t dare to disagree.

Yet the worst teeth of all were his molars. They were the most difficult to not agitate, and Émilie had since developed some sort of sixth sense for when they were ready to go. Maybe it was because Adrien started to eat differently, chewing with only one side of his mouth and cutting his food into smaller bites. Maybe it was because the dentist informed her that Adrien was a little late in losing his teeth, but otherwise, her son had good alignment and a clean mouth. Maybe it was because she was sick.

Adrien was twelve when Émilie’s coughing started. 

Adrien was twelve when Émilie pulled out his last baby tooth.

He had been hiding it for weeks, the memory of his mother’s fingers in his mouth keeping him on his toes. Adrien loved his mother: he loved playing the piano for her, as he was doing now, and he loved that he could make her happy. He loved her enthusiasm, her support, her love and care. And he loved everything she did for him, because she was his mum and he was her son, and in the end, that’s all that mattered.

The notes of the piano were clear and crisp, the crescendo of the song vibrating through the room like a bird call. His young fingers were starting to ache from all of the work he was putting in, but Adrien didn’t mind. Seeing his mum’s smile was worth hours of dedication. Earning his father’s approval was worth a few aches.

And as the piece came to a close, Adrien smiled at her as she stood and clapped and enthusiastically congratulated him on his mastery, but Adrien couldn’t hold back a flinch as she cupped his cheek and kissed him.

“Honey?” she inquired, frowning. “Adrien, my little one, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, too quickly. “Just been practising a lot. Thank you for listening.”

He tried to smile again, but Émilie’s hand ran down and gripped his jaw hard, and Adrien whined.

“Do you have another one?” she asked, her voice as sweet as her nickname for him. Desperately, Adrien shook his head.

“N-No, Mum, they’re all gone.”

“Adrien, don’t lie to me.”

Of course Émilie saw through his paper-thin cover-up. Never had Adrien lied to her, not like this, and he sat there, staring at the piano keys but not seeing them, his very bones filling with dread. If he let her take this last, final tooth - that would be it. No more stressful days of hiding, no more fighting against her as she plucked teeth from his jaw like one plucks flowers. No more secrets.

He opened his mouth to speak, to come clean, but just as he did, Émilie turned his head and stuck one finger inside, searching. Adrien jerked away out of reflex, and he slipped backwards, off the piano bench and thwacking his head on the floor. 

“Adrien!” Émilie screeched. Adrien groaned as she got off the bench and knelt beside him, coaxing him to sit up. Slowly, he did as he was told, and Adrien shook off her worries.

“M’fine, Mum,” he mumbled, but his head was spinning. His mouth hurt. He rubbed his jaw, right where the loose tooth was, and Adrien winced as a jolt of pain shot through his skull.

“No! You’re not!” she insisted, forcibly pushing him back down.

And at that moment, something primal jump-started within Adrien. Something instinctual: to get away, to run, to _flee._ Just as Émilie leaned over him, holding him against the floor by his shoulder, Adrien experienced his first, true taste of fear. His eyes blew wide, and he started to kick, to struggle, to resist, and Émilie had to swing her leg over him, pinning him at the waist, to prevent Adrien from being successful.

“Mum! Mum no!” Adrien refused to hit her still, but his body seemed to know it was an option. He kept pushing her hands away, and for a time, they struggled - Adrien, trying to wiggle and slip away, Émilie trying to prevent her son’s escape. They grappled, they even rolled at one point, but Adrien was young and reluctant and Émilie was clever and determined. She eventually pinned his wrists above his head, and Adrien openly sobbed as she tried to yank his mouth back open.

“Émilie, what’re you doing!” 

_Father!_

“He’s lying to me!” she shouted, lifting Adrien’s wrists and slamming them back down against the floor. “He’s hiding things and he’s not listening and he’s _lying!”_

“Mum, Mum please! I’m n-not--!”

But his words were forcibly cut off as she stuck nearly her whole hand in his mouth, found the loose molar, and _pulled._

Adrien kicked, screamed, tried to get away, but the pain was overwhelming. The tooth did not come as clean as the others - it was stubborn, and Émilie had to twist it back and forth, prompting more yells and tears from her son as he fought to get away, not bite his mother’s fingers, and not choke on his own snot.

She had to stop, her fingers pulling out. Adrien went still and sobbed in relief, but she only hit him in the head and dove back in, her son now too dazed and shocked to properly struggle again.

But the only memory that was truly vivid to Adrien, the one image that stuck with him over the years, was looking up and seeing that Gabriel, his father, was just watching, uninterested and unassumed.

* * *

Marinette today reacted how Adrien had wanted his father to react: terrified, disgusted, and willing to rush in and yank twelve-year-old him away from the talons of his mother. Her emotional response was everything, suddenly - it was a balm on his soul, and Adrien held her close as they both cried in frustration. At some point, she gently detached herself so she could stand and pace the length of their living room again, her socked feet digging furrows in the carpet with her anxiety. Adrien watched her, his eyes barely following. He felt like…

He felt boneless, tired, _drained._ Like all of his fight was gone, like he had no energy left to bite back, like all of his teeth were missing. 

Yet she, Marinette--beautiful, strong, incredible, Marinette--was focused and clear. She was already coming up with a vision, or a plan, to address the problem. Whereas he had always felt held down and weighted by the past, Marinette was always looking to the future. They had always struggled to live in the present.

Adrien’s mind drifted to Hugo. Their son had grounded them, somewhat, for Hugo’s needs were pressing and simple and difficult to meet. Adrien knew he would not be the parent his mother was, nor would he allow Marinette to become that kind of parent, but…

But the fear was there.

“Wh… What do we do?” he asked, tiredly. Both of them were wrung dry, like old rags. But a shower, some sleep, and a good breakfast tomorrow would revitalise them, and Adrien knew Marinette was looking forward to that moment. His wife paused, thinking.

She turned to look at him, and her smile was soft and full of pity. Adrien squirmed, uncomfortable.

Marinette came back over and sat beside him again, huffing as she did so. “We can call my parents in the morning for advice,” she started, throwing an arm over Adrien’s shoulders and leaning against him. He wrapped an arm around her waist. “We can call the therapists’ office and the dentist on Monday. Do you think you’ll be able to get an appointment?”

“For Hugo?” Adrien asked, confused.

“For _you,”_ Marinette stressed.

“Oh.”

The pieces weren’t quite clicking now that he was tired. After a moment of thought, Adrien nodded. “Yeah,” he affirmed. “It shouldn’t be hard. Might be a week or two, though.”

“That’s better than nothing,” she said through a yawn, covering her mouth.

“Yeah…”

They lapsed back into an uneasy silence, but Adrien could tell that she wanted to bring something else up from the way her fingers absently played with the hair at the base of his neck. He glanced at her, dragged a smile onto his face to comfort her, and she gave him a look - the one that said that she knew what he was doing, and that he didn’t have to do that. Adrien’s grin turned sheepish.

“Sorry,” Marinette chuckled, bringing her hand from his neck to his face to cup his cheek and kiss the other. “Uhm…”

“You can say anything, Marinette,” Adrien reminded her gently. 

“Do you think you’ll be okay to sleep tonight?” she forced out, concern finally putting more lines in her face. Adrien winced and turned away, breaking from her hold. “We could try those pills, the zolpi--”

“I don’t want them,” Adrien growled, taking his turn to leave the couch and walk around the living room. Yet his knees shook as he finally stood up, and Adrien wobbled, unbalanced. Marinette quickly stood with him, steadying his shoulders.

“Thanks…” he mumbled, pulling away to finally pace. Marinette watched in avid concern as he did, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders bent.

“The doctor gave us them for a reason, Adrien. It’s okay to need help.”

“I take enough medicine, I don’t want more.” He paused and kicked at the carpet before looking up at his wife. “Besides, I wake up groggy. And I don’t want to be dependent on a sleep aid.” His jaw tightened. “What if you need me?”

Marinette sighed, her chest falling as she looked around the room helplessly. “I won’t,” she tried, but even Adrien could hear the lie in her voice, and Marinette shifted under his disbelieving gaze. “I don’t want you to struggle with nightmares again.”

Adrien looked back at the carpet, all the fight leaving him. “...Half?” he asked, helpless, knowing he wouldn’t win the argument against her if they continued to have it. Marinette exhaled in relief.

“Half,” she agreed readily. Adrien sagged with her, and Marinette chuckled and shook her head.

Slowly, they came together again as a couple. They shared a brief, tight hug; they separated, her to the bathroom to grab the medicine and him to the kitchen to make mugs of tea; and then together again, hot tea between them as she brought out a small, sharp knife and a cutting board. Adrien pulled open the white and blue box and pushed one of the white, oval pills out of the blister tab, and Marinette caught it. She carefully held it on the cutting board, aiming her knife at the groove in the pill’s centre, and then drove the blade sharply down - so that the pill split cleanly in half. One part, she gave to Adrien, and he stuck it back in the box with the rest.

The other part she held in her hand as she opened his daily divider, dumped Saturday’s batch of nightly pills on top of the zolpidem, and then turned to him. Adrien stared at the small pile uneasily, but Marinette was patient. Slowly, Adrien held out his own hand, and she transferred the medicine to him.

Quickly, he took them, swallowing them down with too-hot tea and determination. Marinette kissed his cheek again before leading him back to their bedroom. Briefly, they checked in on their son as they passed his room, but Hugo was sound asleep - his head buried underneath his pillow, butt in the air, hands stretched towards his headboard, but asleep.

And quietly, they got ready for bed. Adrien went through the motions with shaking hands and blurring vision, but Marinette helped him uncap the mouthwash and plug in his phone, and she tucked him into the sheets as he felt his world tilt.

“Milady…?” Adrien mumbled, fighting through the fog. She hummed. “Bed…?”

“I need a shower,” she whispered, sitting down on the edge of the bed and running her fingers through his hair. “I’ll be out soon, alright, Chaton?”

Adrien muttered something unintelligible, but Marinette took it as a sound of agreement. Before he finally slipped away, Marinette laid one, final goodnight kiss on his forehead before walking away.

* * *

It was nearly two a.m. according to the clock on her phone. Marinette closed the bathroom door behind her, groaned, and slide down to the floor, head in her hands. After all these years, she was still discovering the extremities of the neglect and abuse her husband had suffered, and every new piece of information made her angry, frustrated, and exhausted.

There was nowhere physical for her to direct her anger. Émilie was long gone, and Gabriel…

It was best to not think about Gabriel.

Tikki fluttered through the wall, her indigo eyes blown wide, and Marinette tried to offer her a happier expression. But the strength was gone, all blown away by the hurricane of a tale Adrien had spun, and Marinette found that she couldn’t. Tikki patted her cheek, and Marinette sunk further into herself.

“I couldn’t do much for him,” she muttered into her knees, holding them close. 

“You did what you could,” Tikki said, sinking to float in front of her holder. “You’re going to do more.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened,” Marinette snarled, lifting her head and glaring at her kwami. Tikki moved forward and sat on Marinette’s knees. “I could--”

“You can’t, Marinette,” Tikki said flatly, her voice serious. Marinette took pause, huffed, and looked away. “Using _any_ miraculous for your own selfish--”

“It wouldn’t be selfish,” Marinette insisted. Her snappish tone was met with a fierce and icy stare, and Marinette wilted. “It’d be for him, how… How would _that_ be selfish?”

Tikki’s glower turned into pity and sympathy, and she rose into the air to rub against Marinette’s tear-stained cheek. “Adrien would never want that of you, you know that.”

Marinette sulked. She knew Tikki was right, but a part of her, a deep and scary part of her, hated Adrien’s parents. It was a part that wanted to go back in time, pick up that tiny, helpless child, and bring him home - raise him with Hugo, give him whatever he wanted, send him to school, allow him to have friends. But a small part of Marinette’s mind reminded her that Adrien was the man he was _because_ of the challenges he had faced, and a louder part complained that that wasn’t fair.

“Sometimes, the world isn’t fair, Marinette. What matters most is how you overcome these difficult obstacles.”

“I know,” she mumbled.

They sat together, bringing gentle comfort to each other, before Marinette steeled herself and stood up. She shed her clothes, turned on the shower, and took a moment to examine her face in the mirror as the water warmed.

She was older now. Adrien was her support as much as she was his. They had been through challenge after challenge together, and that would not change now. Even though this was the worst account she had heard of his childhood yet, they would get through this. He would come out the other end, just as strong, just as passionate, and just as optimistic.

“I have to trust him,” she said to her reflection, watching her mouth move but not quite connecting to the words that came out. With one last sigh for the night, she stepped away from the mirror and into the shower, washing away the day’s grime, both physical and mental.

And some twenty minutes later, she would slide into bed next to her husband, preparing herself for the few hours of rest she would get before Hugo eventually woke them up.

* * *

“Hey, maman.” 

“Sweetie! Good morning!” Sabine was grinning happily through the tablet screen, grey eyes dancing. Her gaze slid over her daughter, her son-in-law, and the happy six-year-old in Adrien’s lap. Slowly, the joy on Sabine’s face broke down into worry. “You both look like sad yeast. What happened?”

Adrien grimaced. He was groggy from the sedative-hypnotic drug he had taken the night before, and the hot cup of coffee to his right was not enough to chase away the fog. He was also emotionally dry still, his very soul too exhausted to put up much of a fight. His wife was not doing much better.

“We...had a rough night,” Marinette admitted. “We need some advice.”

“About what?”

Adrien spoke up next. “Hugo has a loose tooth.”

Sabine looked very confused for a moment, and Adrien didn’t blame her. He wanted to explain further, but the words were stuck in the back of his throat, and Hugo’s eyes were moving from the toy in his hands to his grandmother on the screen.

“Grandma!” Hugo yelled, suddenly excited. He squirmed out of Adrien’s lap, his foot catching Adrien in the stomach, and he tried to grab the tablet as Adrien wheezed.

“You okay?” Marinette said, leaning towards her husband as he tried to catch his breath. He nodded, clenching his middle.

“Yeah, just winded…” he got out, as Hugo happily showed Sabine his loose tooth. Sabine praised her grandson with a wide smile, but then her voice lowered.

“Hugo, can I talk to your mum and dad for a moment? If you play quietly while we talk, we can make cookies next time you come over.”

His son’s eyes blew so wide that even Adrien managed a chuckle. Hugo quickly and silently nodded, before darting back to his bedroom to play. Marinette nibbled her bottom lip, unsure, but Sabine called their attention before she could make the decision to watch after her son.

“Please, tell me what’s wrong,” Sabine said grimly as she leaned forward. Marinette and Adrien glanced at each other, took a deep breath together, and Adrien started again on his story.

“My mother wasn’t very good about loose teeth,” he said, trying to keep the emotions out of his voice. Concern flashed across Sabine’s face, and Adrien knew she would’ve swept him up into a hug if she was physically here. “She… She did some bad things. I would never think of putting Hugo through that, but--”

“And I don’t think you would, Adrien,” Sabine affirmed, and Adrien felt like a weight had been peeled from his shoulders. It was one thing to hear those words from his wife, who always had his back, but it was another to hear it from the mother figure in his life. “May I ask… What did your mother do?”

Adrien broke eye contact with her and looked down at his folded hands in shame. His wife took over.

“Émilie has no right to be called a mother,” Marinette fumed. “She pinned her son down like an _animal_ and--”

“Marinette,” Adrien pleaded, but she kept going.

“--and _tore_ his teeth out! She was downright fuc--”

“Marinette!” Both Adrien and Sabine interrupted her, and she cowed under their combined weight. She scoffed and looked away, folding her arms.

“She was downright insane,” she finished lamely. Adrien relaxed, slumping back in his chair. He grabbed his coffee and took a cautious sip, finding it nearly tepid. He swallowed a larger gulp as Sabine considered the situation.

“Obviously, don’t try to pull out the tooth,” Sabine started, her steely gaze sliding over her daughter to Adrien. He put down his mug. “Let it fall out naturally. Give him soft foods if he’s complaining about pain when chewing, or an ice pack if it starts to ache.”

Marinette nodded dutifully, taking notes on her phone as her mother spoke. Adrien had no energy to truly process his mother-in-law’s advice, but he knew he could follow it. He could be patient where Émilie had never been. Already Adrien was mentally listing soft foods he could pick up at the grocery store: applesauce and berries, breads and bananas, shredded chicken and fish. They could try peas, corn, oatmeal, and even mashed potatoes. Hugo would not have to suffer through apples and carrots and dreaded brussel sprouts.

"Do you still have children's Doliprane?" Sabine asked, and Marinette stiffened in her chair. Adrien grunted as he sat up.

“I’ll go check,” he offered, standing stiffly and leaving the dining room to go check the medicine cabinet in Hugo’s bathroom.

On the way there, he passed by Hugo’s room, and Adrien peeked in to see him playing with his trucks and dolls. All of his son’s coloured buckets were dumped out, toys clogging the floor and making it a minefield for socked toes, but Hugo was happy and content. He didn’t even notice as Adrien moved away from the door.

In the bathroom, Adrien found a half-empty box of pink paracetamol. He checked the expiration date and winced. He put it back and walked back to where his wife and her mother were still talking, their voices hushed.

They came to a curious stop as Adrien approached them, their eyes watching him as he sat back down in the chair. He looked between the two women, wondering if he or his parents had been the subject of discussion, but Adrien decided to let it go.

“Do we have any?” Marinette asked, and Adrien made an iffy motion with his hands.

“We do,” he explained. “But it’s expiring in two weeks.”

“We can pick up more.” Marinette quickly started typing on her phone again, probably adding the painkiller to the list. “And maybe another ice pack, something smaller for him.”

“You can also have Hugo swish warm salt water,” Sabine offered. Adrien nodded, leaning back in his chair as he picked his coffee back up. He drank it slowly as Sabine continued. “Just make sure he knows not to swallow it.”

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “I was four, maman! Hugo’s older than that!”

Adrien blinked. “What?” he said, ineloquently. 

Sabine laughed. “We told Marinette not to swallow the saltwater! But she did it anyway, and she made the cutest, disgusted, little faces! Remind me next time you’re over, I have pictures.”

Adrien grinned manically. “I would love to see those, Sabine.”

“Maman, I thought we were past the embarrassing photos’ stage!” Marinette wailed, throwing her phone on the table so she could lean closer to the tablet as Adrien chuckled. If he had had more energy, he knew he would’ve been on the floor, laughing until he couldn’t breathe. But all he could muster was enough to let the women know that he was happy.

“Ooh, sweetie, surely we can just show him a few more?” Sabine pleaded, and Marinette shook her head as Tom entered the frame.

“Show Adrien what, dear?” he asked, leaning down so he could see the screen. He waved at his daughter, and Marinette pouted.

“Morning, papa,” she grumbled. 

“Good morning, Tom,” Adrien managed. “Sabine wanted to show me more photographs of Marinette as a child.”

“Ooohh,” Tom grinned widely, and he darted off-screen to somewhere else. Marinette groaned again, hiding her face in her hands, and Adrien reached over to pat her on the back.

“Sabine, anything else?” Adrien tried, figuring that he might as well as try to save his wife from further embarrassment. Sabine tapped her chin in thought. 

“Marinette knows the tale of the little mouse, right?” Sabine clarified, and Marinette and Adrien nodded. “It’s good encouragement for little ones. I’m guessing your mother never…” 

Adrien shook his head, and Sabine looked sad again.

“Are they still coming over next weekend?” came Tom’s voice from further in the flat. Sabine looked expectantly at her children, and Marinette nodded again, standing up.

“Yes yes, of course,” she said, picking up the tablet. “Well, thanks for everything, maman, the advice is great, we’ll see you next weekend and--”

“Wait!” Tom cried. “I just found the album!”

“Bye papa, I love you too!” Marinette yelped, the words falling out of her mouth in a rush as she jammed her finger into the hang-up button. She slumped back in her chair, and Adrien gave her a cheeky grin as he drank the rest of his coffee.

“He’s going to show me next weekend,” Adrien pointed out. Marinette ran her hands over her face.

“I knoooow,” she moaned. “He’s terrible.”

“I love them,” Adrien said simply.

“Of course _you_ do!” Marinette cried, her hands flying into the air as she slumped even lower in her seat. “They’re embarrassing pictures of me at Hugo’s age, you’ve always been all over--!”

“No.” Adrien twisted his empty mug in his hands. “I meant, I love your parents.”

Marinette dropped her arms, pushed herself up, and sat in her chair properly. “I… I know,” she said softly. “And they love you.”

Despite that the last of his coffee had been cold, Adrien’s heart was incredibly warm.

* * *

Hugo lost his first tooth some two and a half weeks after their conversation with Tom and Sabine.

Adrien was sitting at the table, shuffling through paperwork with glasses perched on his nose, when Hugo came running. He was crying, wailing, and Adrien momentarily panicked; he threw his glasses onto the tabletop, slid out of his chair, and kneeled in front of his son.

“Hey hey hey,” Adrien cooed, grabbing a handkerchief out of his back pocket to push Hugo’s tears away and to clean up his nose. Hugo blew when Adrien instructed him, and Adrien put the cloth away. Hugo hiccuped. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s _gone!”_ Hugo bawled, rubbing at his eyes. “My tooth is _gone!”_

Adrien stiffened, took a deep breath, and then tried to focus on caring for his son.

Despite telling Marinette everything, getting support from her parents, relaying the events to his therapist, _and_ following all of their amazing advice, Adrien was still not-quite put together. Hugo’s tiny teeth were sharp, and they weren’t bigger than the nail on Adrien’s pinkie. He found himself grappling with memories, fear, anxiety…

But Marinette wasn’t home, and they knew this had been a possibility. He had prepared himself for it.

“Do you know where it is?” Adrien asked quietly. The dentist had said it was possible for young children to swallow their baby teeth, but Adrien tried not to dwell on that.

Hugo nodded, sniffled, and thrust out his closed fist. Adrien looked down, presented his palm, and Hugo opened his fist - dropping a small, white chip of bone into his father’s hand.

Adrien felt all the oxygen leave his lungs.

Desperately, he scrambled for air, and Hugo watched him with awe, hope, and trust. Adrien forced himself to breathe again. He had to be a parent; Hugo needed him.

“This is good,” Adrien said, closing his fingers around the tooth. A smile spread across his face as Hugo sniffled again. “Now that your tooth fell out, we can send for the little mouse, and she’ll come to collect it.”

“Will she come? Will she really?” Hugo reached for Adrien, and Adrien pulled him into a tight hug. Carefully, after shifting himself for better balance, Adrien stood up with Hugo in his arms. He grunted with the effort--his son was not so light anymore, and Adrien was feeling his age more and more lately--but soon, they were walking back to Hugo’s room.

“I’m sure she will,” Adrien reassured, passing through the doorway. He was careful to step around the toys on the floor, shuffling his feet along and nudging hard plastic out of the way to create a path. With a groan, Adrien deposited Hugo on the bed. “Jeez kiddo, you’re getting heavy.”

“It’s ‘cause he’s been eating nothing but bananas and yoghurt and bread rolls,” came a voice from behind them, and Adrien jumped. Hugo giggled.

“Maman!” he trilled, leaping out of bed and running across his room to throw his arms around Marinette’s knees. She ruffled his hair, dropping her bag to the floor so she could pick him up herself.

“How’s my little cabbage?” she cooed. “What’s with this gap in your mouth?”

Hugo clung to her as Marinette came to stand beside Adrien. Just as Hugo said, “My milk fell out!”, Adrien held up the tooth for her to see. Marinette’s blue eyes went wide, and Adrien could see that she wanted to ask him a question, but he shook his head: he could wait, he was fine, Hugo was more important. Marinette bit the inside of her mouth - Adrien could see her cheek pinch from the force of it.

“That’s amazing!” Marinette cheered her son on, bouncing him slightly as he giggled. “We’ll have to put it under your pillow tonight!”

“So the little mouse can come?”

“Yes! She’ll leave a gift, would you like a gift?”

“Yeah! A gift!”

Adrien watched them fondly as he sat down on the bedspread, the tightness in his chest loosening and falling free, like how milk teeth were supposed to. This moment felt right: watching his wife, his Lady, with their son, laughter and joy radiating from them both. It felt like a family, a home, and Adrien carefully placed the tooth down on Hugo’s bedside table before standing up himself to join them.

Later that night, as Marinette and he lingered in the dark hallway, he chickened out.

“I _can’t,”_ Adrien moaned, running his hands through his hair. “What if I wake him up? What if he freaks out? What if he--”

“Adrien.” Marinette’s voice was so firm, that he couldn’t help but snap to attention. “You won’t wake him up. Hugo sleeps like the dead, and you know that.”

Adrien pouted. “But it’s _la Petite Souris_ who--”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “We are _not_ relying on the kwamis to--”

“I wasn’t referencing Mullo,” Adrien quickly spoke over her, pulling her hands into his own. He raised one to his lips and laid a small kiss on the inside of her wrist. Marinette flushed, but she didn’t stand down. “You’re the little mouse between the two of us.”

She closed her eyes, her exasperation with him causing him to hesitate. Adrien didn’t want to push her, and…

“Dr Pemberley said you should be the one to do it,” Marinette said quietly, her words as muffled as the shadows surrounding them. “That it would...help.”

“And I will. Next time,” Adrien begged. He knew he was stalling, he knew Marinette would make him do this, but he felt like his knees were made of jelly and his hands as thick as bricks. Suddenly, he better understood his wife’s perchance for clumsiness.

“‘Next time’ could be six months to a year away,” Marinette pointed out. “You need to start _now.”_

Adrien bit his lip. “There’ll be plenty of teeth. N-Nineteen other teeth.”

Her once stern expression shifted into one of empathy, and she pulled her husband into a tight hug. Adrien clung to her, resting his head on her shoulder as his body shook. He wanted to sob, to cry, but he wouldn’t let the despair come. Instead, he focused on her breathing, letting the rising and falling of her shoulders bring his heart back home in his emotional storm.

“Let’s just focus on this one,” she muttered into his ear, kissing the side of his head. “Take the tooth, leave the coin. It’s all you have to do. We don’t even have to keep it.”

“Isn’t it traditional?”

“I think our family is far from traditional, Adrien,” Marinette chuckled. “But if you want to keep it, we can.”

“I don’t.” He was sure about that.

“Then we won’t.”

It was comforting. Slowly, Adrien detached himself from his wife, kissed her forehead, took a deep breath, and then turned to look at the slightly ajar door to Hugo’s room. Silently, Adrien pushed it open a little further, scuttled inside, and discreetly walked over to his son’s bed. Both Plagg and Tikki followed him, curiosity plain on their faces.

The nightlight on the floor cycled lazily from blue to green and back again, giving the bedroom a soothing, underwater vibe that created muted shadows. A fan in the far corner hummed as it turned, circulating the air and keeping the room cool, especially during the warm summer nights. And the glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls and ceiling stood out in sharp contrast, their dull lambency just an imposter to the real ones outside.

Hugo was deeply asleep, and he didn’t even stir when Adrien stubbed his toe on the xylophone. Holding back a whine, wondering why the damn thing was out of its shelf again, Adrien waited a few seconds to make sure the toy hadn’t awoken his son. He glanced behind him to see Marinette fidgeting in the doorway - she must’ve heard the toy when it rang in protest of being kicked.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien turned back to the bed, knelt down, and slowly slipped his hand underneath Hugo’s pillow. The child shifted, Adrien went as still as a mouse, and everyone waited with bated breath to see what would happen.

Nothing did.

Adrien forced his fingers to spread out, looking for that small cloth bag they had placed the milk tooth in earlier. He found it near the middle, and he gradually pulled it free. Quickly, he exchanged the tooth for a flat, gold and silver, two euro coin. With more confidence than he felt, Adrien pushed his hand back under with the bag, and he left it approximately where he had found it: near the middle, right under Hugo’s head.

He beat a hasty retreat after that, his heart pounding and sweat practically oozing from his pores, as Tikki and Plagg giggled at his distress.

“Oh my goosshh,” Adrien moaned to his wife, once he was in the hallway again and could hide his face in the hand not holding the tooth. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve done since we had to fight akumas.”

“Was it really?” Marinette said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at him. Adrien peeked at her through his fingers.

“Yes,” he grumbled. But then his face relaxed. “No,” he admitted.

Marinette’s face softened. “It was still very brave of you. I’m proud of you, Chaton.”

He partly lowered his hand to stare at her. “You are?”

She laughed, and they reached for each other, pulling one another into another tight hug that calmed his heart. “Of course. I’m always proud of you, Adrien.”

He smiled into her hair, nuzzling the top of her head. “Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too. Now…” Marinette pulled away from the hug, and Adrien let her go. “Now that that’s taken care of, would you do the honour of joining me for a mug of cocoa and some video games?”

“Milady,” Adrien gave her a small bow, hand gesturing back towards the living room and kitchen. “You do me the honour just by asking.”

She playfully pushed his shoulder, giggling, and Adrien followed after her with a wide grin as she darted towards the kitchen.

He nearly forgot to throw away the tooth.

**Author's Note:**

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